Decluttering Twitter

I have
already shared how I declutter my digital blogging life on Bloglovin. Today I
am continuing the series and talking about
Twitter. It is funny how previously I was looking at people with a following of a few thousand and
thinking that it will take me years before I get
there. What I failed to notice was how many people they actually followed themselves. Quite often it is a very similar or
higher number to the number that follows them. After decluttering Bloglovin I
was more cautious and started to ask questions what is the real value of the number of followers they have? If I was a brand would I really be impressed with someone
who has 5k followers but follows 9k?

Decluttering Social Media - Twitter

Over a year
ago I had a good look at my own Twitter. I noticed that I really do not
interact that much. My number of followers was
growing but so was the number of people I follow. Once again I noticed the
pattern, which honestly did not indicate that my Twitter and content was interesting. Instead it just shown that I am good
and quick enough in following back. I thought that I
was being nice, that this might be the way to start a conversation. I was wrong, once again I fallen into
a trap of being a number.

How did I decide who should I unfollow?

Over the
course of three days I used various tools such as Tweepdash to check whom I
follow and who is not following me. Some people have a very odd, and from the
marketing point of view, annoying strategy of following and unfollowing people
to have a bigger ratio between followers and followed. Patiently I went to
check each of the Twitter accounts that was not
following me and ask myself a question whether I
wanted to stay in touch and spark a conversation? If the answer was yes I twitted them.
I would ask them something directly either relevant to their latest twit, post
or something they know about. Consequently if they were interested in
interaction I would continue following them
because I do not really mind if they do not follow me. I totally understand if
my twits, posts, or images are not what they are interested in. What I do mind
is if they are open to a dialogue with me.
Partly because I simply find ignoring your followers rather rude but again this
is just my opinion. This also allowed me to stop having people on my list who
were not active for months.

Why is it worth it to regularly check the quality of content you can see on Twitter?

Another
thing that I have did was to carefully observe my
home stream on Twitter and the twits there. If I
noticed that someone is being incredibly negative, they stopped interacting
with me, or that I am not having a conversations
with them I would also unfollow them. My mind and perspective on social media
changed dramatically this year. I really want quality and numbers remains well just a number. What does it mean anyway
when it is so easy to buy followers?

Did I lost
followers?

Yes, I did but because I had so much less clutter on my home page I
finally started to see what interests me! This also allowed me to interact so
much more with so many different people because finally there was no clutter!
As a result I started gaining more followers faster than I ever had before!
They would also speak with me and not leave just because I do not follow them
back.

Who do I follow?

I will tell
you a secret who I follow. Firstly if you have a conversation with me just
simple “Hi, how are you? I have seen your post about XYZ thanks for sharing” I
will check your profile and the chances that I will follow you back are very high. To most of my new followers I
also send question to try and get them involved.
This usually includes if they would like to take part in my bloggers’
series ‘Finish the sentence…’ I started this series
during the beginning of year. You can take part in the November edition, all the
information is at the end of this post. This series is a perfect filter to show
who wants to interact with me. Even if it’s a simple ‘Thank you for letting me
know, but I will pass this time’ for me it is a clear signal that says ‘Hey,
this is not someone who just follows me for follow and then leaves within a
day. Since I stopped following people just because they follow me I now have the time to
check websites of people who do follow me. Quite often I leave a comment giving
another opportunity to spark a conversation.

Share your thoughts :

I regularly check who I follow on Twitter because I really don't want to miss good tweets and tweets from people and blogs I care about in a sea of information. I like what you described in step 1 because it's exactly what I do. If the person doesn't respond or their content doesn't get me going I'll unfollow. xxx

I've never actually done this before, but you're so right! I'm now about to go through and see who I want to follow and try and make conversations. I'm awful for engaging in conversations, but you've inspired me to start sending out more tweets! Emily xxhttps://underthescottishrain.blogspot.co.uk/

I was literally planning to do something like this on both Twitter and Bloglovin so I've stumbled across this at the right timing! I normally use the unfollow apps for both twitter and IG but I bet there are a whole host of accounts I'm following who are probably inactive. I made the mistake of just following everyone back when I started blogging and I can count probably 20 people i usually speak to. Great post and as informative as ever Iga. Have a wonderful weekend!

It is always sad when people you used to speak with just disappear from social media. I discovered lately that a few people I really loved speaking with just closed their accounts without saying 'goodbye' Have a fab day, Iga x

This is such a great idea! If someone follows me, I typically have a quick scroll through their recent tweets to determine whether I want to follow them back or not. I refrain from following any account that is just a constant promotion of social media and blog links and won't follow anyone who barely tweets. I've never followed someone back just because they're following me and I'm happy about that as I don't think I could handle so many different faces on my timeline!

Hi Mel, thank you for stopping by! That's fair enough. I usually have around 20-50 people playing follow unfollow game so I do not really check accounts. However I do try to interact with people who followed me and if they engage I am like 'Hell, yes I want to connect with you!' :)

I love this post. I'm starting to serious declutter my Twitter. The "follow back" got me into following content I'm really not interested in and that are just spam on my feed.I need to declutter my bloglovin.

And yes, there are too many unfollowers. Not a good move. I also use a tool to show me who they are and delete them from my list.